Burning blu-rays with subtitles

[MisterW]

Hello,

I've recently acquired a new printer, blank blu rays, and blu-ray burner in hopes of being able to burn some blu-rays and watch them on most blu-ray players. I've been conducting research and engaging in trial and error for the past couple of weeks and have had little success and many wasted discs. I don't have too much experience when it comes to this stuff and am interested in learning more. Hopefully I can contribute to this community and help other people in return with the topics that I am better at, like software engineering.

Onto the goal and the problem.

Goal: Burn a collection of high definition MKV files (like an episodic TV series) to a blu ray and play it back on most devices, like a computer, blu-ray player, PS4, and Xbox-One. It is of vital importance that subtitles be included and optional additional audio tracks. Additionally, I wanted to design custom main menus, but that is a cherry on top at this point.

Problem: All of the discs I burn work on the blu-ray drive in my computer, but fail to play on my Xbox-One (however, actual blu-ray movies that I have purchased from Amazon play flawlessly on the Xbox-One).

Procedure A: I drop several MKV files into Nero Video, create a main menu, select my blu-ray burner, and hit burn. The disc will work on both Xbox-One and Computer, but no subtitles are included.

I did some research and it looks like Nero does not like .ASS files. So I used mkvextract to extract the .ASS file, converted it to .SRT with dsrt333, and remuxed with mkvtoolnix. I again drop the .mkv into Nero Video and make my main menu + burn, but there are still no subtitles on BOTH my computer and the Xbox-One. Since I absolutely must have the subtitles, my mission has failed.

Procedure B: Following similar steps from Procedure A, I extract the .ASS subs, convert to .SRT, and remux to .mkv. From there, I use tsumuxer to convert the .mkv to a .iso, and then I use imgburn to burn the .iso to a blu-ray disc (skipping Nero Video completely and sacrificing the main menu functionality that I wanted). In this case, the video will play on my computer with subtitles, but the video will not play at all on Xbox-One. Since I need to play these discs on multiple devices, this procedure also failed.

Procedure C: I've attempted a more painful route by hardcoding the subtitles. To do this, I used VidCoder (based on handbrake) with a modified "High" preset. The video codec is h.264, the framerate is same as source, the constant quality is 13, the profile is High, and the level is 4.1. I select the subtitles that I want, select "Burn In," and re-encode so that the subtitles are hardcoded.

From this point, I drag the new files into Nero Video so that I can build my custom main menu and chapters. Then I burn to disc directly from Nero Video. The result is a little more promising than Procedures A and B, but still ends in failure. The videos work on my computer and play with the hardcoded subs. The videos play on Xbox-One and the hardcoded subs show, but it is super choppy. The subtitles move faster than the audio and the video lags. I played around with refresh rates on the television and various video settings on the Xbox-One and ruled out that it is still likely an error on my part as opposed to any sort of hardware issue. I deduced this by noticing that the "extra" video file I included on the disc -- the sole video file that was not re-encoded with hard subs -- had no choppy lag effects. There weren't any subtitles on that extra, mind you, but it played the video flawlessly nevertheless.


It seems like Procedure C gets me closest to my overall goal, even though I would prefer soft subs ideally. Based on my observation about the sole extra video playing flawlessly on the Xbox-One, while the other hardsubbed videos played choppy, could a setting in my VidCoder encoding profile be incorrect?

Here are some mediainfo of some example mkv files I am attempting to work with.

mkv before I re-encode for hardsub:

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 11 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 33 min 4 s
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (23976/1000) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Title : H.264
Writing library : x264 core 112
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=12 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=10 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=12 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=16.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=3 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : Japanese
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec
Codec ID : A_FLAC
Duration : 33 min 4 s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Title : FLAC 5.1
Writing library : libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
Language : Japanese
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Text
ID : 3
Format : ASS
Codec ID : S_TEXT/ASS
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Sub Station Alpha
Compression mode : Lossless
Title : Styled Subs [Retail]
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

mp4 after I re-encode for hardsubs:

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 33 min 4 s
Bit rate : 7 356 kb/s
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS
Minimum frame rate : 23.810 FPS
Maximum frame rate : 24.390 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.333
Stream size : 1.70 GiB (98%)
Writing library : x264 core 142 r2479 dd79a61
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=13.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=62500 / vbv_bufsize=78125 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 33 min 4 s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 156 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 spf)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 37.0 MiB (2%)
Title : Stereo / Stereo
Language : Japanese
Default : Yes
Alternate group : 1

I'm essentially a novice when it comes to this stuff and learned all that I could. I would appreciate any and all tips that could point me in the right direction! To summarize, I would love to be able to:

• Burn mkv files to blu ray discs
• For multiple episodes or video files on one disc (episodic series)
• With subtitles (soft preferred, but willing to re-encode for hard)
• With multiple audio tracks
• With a custom main menu (I have Nero Video but am willing to spend money on other authoring softwares that you might recommend)
• That is as universal as possible (plays on computers, game consoles, and most blu ray players)

Thank you for taking the time to read this! Take care.

[usually_quiet]

Have you updated your console recently?

I remembered that historically playback of recordable Blu-ray media was intentionally disabled on the XBox One, but when I did a search to see if that was still true I found a report which said that support for BD-R and BD-RE was supposed to become available for the XBox One and XBox One S last month via an update. http://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-one-s-getting-support-re-writable-blu-ray-discs

Maybe this feature is still not working perfectly.

[MisterW]

Have you updated your console recently?

I remembered that historically playback of recordable Blu-ray media was intentionally disabled on the XBox One, but when I did a search to see if that was still true I found a report which said that support for BD-R and BD-RE was supposed to become available for the XBox One and XBox One S last month via an update. http://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-one-s-getting-support-re-writable-blu-ray-discs

I've done the update and commerical blu-rays that I ordered from Amazon seem to work on the Xbox-One. Sadly, the blu-rays that I burn do not.

Thank you for your reply, I appreciate it.

[usually_quiet]

The Bluray movies you purchased from Amazon are authored, which means they all conform to standards spelled out in the Blu-ray spec. All Blu-ray players must be able to play such disks.

However, it looks like you are burning MKV files as data. Unfortunately there is no spec that determines what every Blu-ray player must support when it comes to media files. Each manufacturer is allowed to place its own requirements on media files burned as data. Some won't play them at all.

These are the requirements for MKV files for the XBox One. https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/apps/mkv-support

The XboxOne will play MKV files which include a subtitle track, but won't display the subtitles. You must hard code the subtitles to have them available in an MKV. The XBox One doesn't support menu information and won't display it, but the MKV file will load and play. I haven't heard of any other Blu-ray player which supports menus in MKV files.

AVC video and AAC audio are fine. FLAC audio wouldn't be playable.

Your hard subbed video uses variable frame rate. Support for variable frame rate video is far from universal. To improve compatibility, you should encode using the same constant frame rate as your original video instead of using VidCoder's/ HandBrake's default frame rate setting (variable frame rate).

[Edit]I have to apologize for misunderstanding what you were doing. It wasn't clear to me from Nero's web page that Nero Video could author Blu-ray discs, and most of your post was about MKVs so I figured you were burning MKVs as data. ...but menus in MKVs seemed so odd that I decided to I keep looking for more documentation on Nero Video, and I found something confirming that Nero Video does allow authoring. Authored Blu-ray doesn't support variable frame rate, so VFR video would need to be re-converted to constant frame rate by Nero prior to authoring. It would be better to avoid that by making sure that Vidcoder uses constant frame rate instead. Authored Blu ray supports Dolby Digital or LPCM, but not AAC. Try converting your FLAC audio to one of the supported formats before authoring with Nero Video. There is information more about what authored Blu-ray allows here: https://www.videohelp.com/hd

Blu-ray supports soft subtitles, but I'm not sure what consumer Blu-ray authoring software supports creating them from text files, or adding Blu-ray subpicture subs created by another program. I have only used an older version of Cyberlink PowerDirector, which doesn't allow creating subtitles or adding them.

[MisterW]

Wow, thank you for that information. I will definitely try switching the frame rate from variable to constant!

Let's say I wanted to conform to the standards spelled out in the Blu-ray spec. I read the guide posted on this site titled, What is Ultra HD, Blu-ray Disc, AVCHD and HD DVD?

Under video codec, it says MPEG-4 AVC: HP@4.1/4.0. Under the audio codec, it mentions Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus. For subtitles, is says "text" but does not specify a preferred format (.SRT, .ASS, etc.). This begs a couple of question to a newcomer like me.

Does HP@4.1/4.0 mean "high profile at level 4.1 or level 4.0?" Would an mpeg-4 (avformat) container with x264 for the video codec (framerate constant and same as source) conform to the spec? You mention that AAC is fine -- would using that codec with Dolby Pro Logic II as the mixdown conform to the spec?

I followed the link for Encoding Video for Blu-Ray using H264/AVC. It looks like there are additional rules for conforming to the specifications if I am encoding video using x264.

In determining the level (4.1 / 4.0), it looks like the difference is a matter of max bitrate. This might sound like a silly question, but what method is there for me to determine what the max bitrate should be?

The thread also mentions additional mandatory requirements in order to meet the blu-ray spec. For example, the parameter:

--bluray-compat

Would I put these mandatory parameters inside of the "more settings" box in VidCoder?

The thread mentions explicitly that if I don't convert directly to .h264, the settings would not be applied and therefore encoding to mp4/mkv would deviate from the specs. Do I need to use a different tool other than VidCoder? Then once I have the h264 file, my audio file, and my srt/ass, how do I package them together or burn them to a disc without violating the specifications?

Maybe encoding to MPEG2 - MP@HL would be easier if I was sticking with just VidCoder. Does MP mean "Main Profile?" And HL "High Level?" When I choose MPEG2 as the video codec in VidCoder, those options are not present -- is it assumed that those will be used by default if I choose MPEG2 as my video codec?

Sorry for asking so many questions, there's much for me to learn. I definitely owe you. Thanks for your patience.

[MisterW]

I have to apologize for misunderstanding what you were doing. It wasn't clear to me from Nero's web page that Nero Video could author Blu-ray discs, and most of your post was about MKVs so I figured you were burning MKVs as data. ...but menus in MKVs seemed so odd that I decided to I keep looking for more documentation on Nero Video, and I found something confirming that Nero Video does allow authoring. Authored Blu-ray doesn't support variable frame rate, so VFR video would need to be re-converted to constant frame rate by Nero prior to authoring. It would be better to avoid that by making sure that Vidcoder uses constant frame rate instead. Authored Blu ray supports Dolby Digital or LPCM, but not AAC. Try converting your FLAC audio to one of the supported formats before authoring with Nero Video.

I just read this. You are a champion, thank you! I will give this a shot later.

[usually_quiet]

I added a little more after my apology. Your replies weren't visible for some reason so I just kept editing my post.

[MisterW]

I added a little more after my apology. Your replies weren't visible for some reason so I just kept editing my post.

All good! You've been a big help, I really appreciate it.

[videobruger]

Perhaps you could use multiAVCHD for softcoded subtitles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb1DlXiXr3U

[usually_quiet]

Wow, thank you for that information. I will definitely try switching the frame rate from variable to constant!

Let's say I wanted to conform to the standards spelled out in the Blu-ray spec. I read the guide posted on this site titled, What is Ultra HD, Blu-ray Disc, AVCHD and HD DVD?

Under video codec, it says MPEG-4 AVC: HP@4.1/4.0. Under the audio codec, it mentions Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus. For subtitles, is says "text" but does not specify a preferred format (.SRT, .ASS, etc.). This begs a couple of question to a newcomer like me.

Blu-ray subtitles are usually provided using a sub-picture subtitling format (image bitmap), similar to DVD subtitles. I have never seen any discussions about text-based Blu-ray subtitles.

Does HP@4.1/4.0 mean "high profile at level 4.1 or level 4.0?"

Yes

Would an mpeg-4 (avformat) container with x264 for the video codec (framerate constant and same as source) conform to the spec?

There is no way to tell based on the limited amount of information you provided, but it may not matter. I'm not sure what Nero Video does, but a lot of consumer Blu-ray authoring software automatically re-encodes all audio and video sources, whether they conform to the spec or not.

You mention that AAC is fine -- would using that codec with Dolby Pro Logic II as the mixdown conform to the spec?

AAC is OK for MKV, but not Blu-ray. I don't know enough about audio codecs to tell you if Dolby Pro Logic II as the mixdown conforms to the spec.

I followed the link for Encoding Video for Blu-Ray using H264/AVC. It looks like there are additional rules for conforming to the specifications if I am encoding video using x264.

In determining the level (4.1 / 4.0), it looks like the difference is a matter of max bitrate. This might sound like a silly question, but what method is there for me to determine what the max bitrate should be?

The encoder chooses the maximum bitrate within the limits you provide, based on the material you are encoding. I don't know enough to give you a better answer.

The thread also mentions additional mandatory requirements in order to meet the blu-ray spec. For example, the parameter:

--bluray-compat

Would I put these mandatory parameters inside of the "more settings" box in VidCoder?

The thread mentions explicitly that if I don't convert directly to .h264, the settings would not be applied and therefore encoding to mp4/mkv would deviate from the specs. Do I need to use a different tool other than VidCoder? Then once I have the h264 file, my audio file, and my srt/ass, how do I package them together or burn them to a disc without violating the specifications?


Maybe encoding to MPEG2 - MP@HL would be easier if I was sticking with just VidCoder. Does MP mean "Main Profile?" And HL "High Level?" When I choose MPEG2 as the video codec in VidCoder, those options are not present -- is it assumed that those will be used by default if I choose MPEG2 as my video codec?

Yes, MP does mean "Main Profile" and HL means "High Level.

I haven't used VidCoder very much, so I can't tell you what will work. In fact, haven't tried it to encode video and audio for Blu-ray compatibility at all. The few times that I have authored a Blu-ray disc, the source files (from TV shows I recorded) happened to be compatible.

I am burning media files as data for the most part. I primarily use a PC for playback. Blu-ray players owned by various members of my family can play these discs as well.

[MisterW]

Perhaps you could use multiAVCHD for softcoded subtitles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb1DlXiXr3U

Wonderful, I will check that out for soft subtitles. Thank you for the suggestion!

I haven't used VidCoder very much, so I can't tell you what will work. In fact, haven't tried it to encode video and audio for Blu-ray compatibility at all. The few times that I have authored a Blu-ray disc, the source files (from TV shows I recorded) happened to be compatible.

I am burning media files as data for the most part. I primarily use a PC for playback. Blu-ray players owned by various members of my family can play these discs as well.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions -- I asked quite a few! This is all starting to make a lot more sense now. If you ever need help with programming or security, I'd love to help you out. Take care.